Two Days and Counting

As we near the end of our time in Guangzhou – and China – we do so with mixed emotions. On the one hand, we are so ready to get home; we miss our friends and family. On the other hand, we love it here and will miss the friends and relationships we have made here. Our Holt guide, Kathryn, has been tremendous. You can tell that she loves what she does, and she is great at it. She and her son have been a Godsend for our family. Our entire family just love to be around them both.

Today we had a tour arranged of a local school. We spent about an hour sharing songs, teaching them tongue twisters, and getting a tour of the school by the children. We were assigned a group of six fourth graders who spoke near perfect English, and were so excited to show us their school. If I could speak half as much Chinese as they spoke English I would be thrilled. I can’t even manage the correct pronunciation for “thank you.” I’ve been told that if I miss pronounce it I am saying “toilet,” which is the last thing I want to do. Since I can’t remember what the correct way is, I say them both. No wonder people look at me a little oddly. Anyhow, I am digressing.

Abbie and Collin were enthralled with the school. I think the highlight for them was getting to the roof garden and combination aviary/monkey-house. I am now convinced
that every school needs a pet monkey. In the states we have school mascots. I even remember in 5^th grade when Brian M. managed to get the 5^th grade class to have a pet mouse. But a monkey!!! How cool is that. Grant, I think that PTF will be working on that for Masters. No, this picture is not of the monkey.

After the school tour, Joe (one of the adopting dads) and I went to the Qingping Market. Picture old China – alleys as narrow as a cart, winding as a snake, and smelly as you-know-what. This is a huge open air market that covers entire city blocks. It’s not that we wanted to buy anything; we just had to experience it. I’m glad we did.

BTW, if anyone knows how to rotate pics in blogger, I'd love to know. I can edit and save them in Picassa, but when it comes time to post, none of my edits (like rotating) actually show. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

This final photo tries to convey just how big and populated China’s cities are. This has been the first clear and sunny day since our arrival in Beijing. Guangzhou has a population of fourteen million people. It is a medium sized city by China standards. Look at the size of the buildings that stretch from horizon to horizon. If you double click on the picture you should be able to enlarge the pic in a new window. The incredible thing is that they are building even more everywhere in China. When we were driving to the airport in Nanchang I looked out the window of our bus as was able to count 23 construction cranes at one time. To say that the crane is China’s national bird is not an overstatement.

Tomorrow is our consulate appointment, and we leave the next day. I’ll post before we leave Guangzhou and will then be offline for our travels. Upon our return I’ll keep you up to speed on Caleb’s development. In addition, I’ll spend some in review of travel lessons for those who will be taking this road (both literally and figuratively) in the future.

Peace. The Harris 5